Actually did a lot of this over the past year. Never really beat any of the games -- I generally don't finish games. I play games to play them, not to finish them, and if I get 20 hours out of something I consider the cost justified (especially considering that the vast majority of the games I own only cost somethingin the ballpark of 3 dollars) -- but definitely played enough to get a good feel for the mechanics.

Quote

And not even stuffs like reducing the sheer amount of grind necessary for everything

Never actually had to grind in DQVII. I didn't even bother buying equipment if I couldn't afford it. You found most of the best stuff anyway. That's basically the key to enjoying DQVII -- never grind.

Anyway.

Games I Used to Dislike:

Golden Sun - I actually started replaying this. Originally hated it because... it was sort of genericy? Combat is simple, but the dungeons are actually really neat and it has a very organic sort of progression. Liking it a lot.

FFVIII - Replayed some of this this summer, using a fanmade difficulty increase patch. Interest waned when I hit Disc 2. The plot completely derailed, GF spam started working again, and Quistis' Degenerator spam REALLY started working.

Anvil of Dawn - Another replay thing from this summer. Turns out the first time I tried playingit I just fucked up somethingcompletely or whatever. IDK. This is actually a pretty damn cool game.

Wizardry 8 - I've stated my issues with this game. I'm halfway through a mod that should address a lot of them. We'll see if it does.

Strange Journey, Etrian Odyssey - Not really DISLIKE but I never got a FEEL for EO, and SJ just started pulling weird bullshit.

Albion - Lack of balance and apparent need for grinding was pissing me off but goddamn if the story isn't interesting.

PSO - OTOH, grind sucks. OTOH, goddamn that atmosphere is foxy.

Xenogears - I... actually finished this game, and liked it, but it had things that I think I would dislike now. I want to try it again.

FM3 - Plot was dumb and the dominance of range weapons sort of bugged me, as did the randomness of your skills firing. Generally preferred FM1 a lot, but... FM3 had some interesting things.

Fragile Allegiance - Irrelevance of building placement on the asteroids bugged me. Not really sure why.

Wild Arms 2 - Actually got around to this one over the summer. Don't remember why I disliked it. I fucking love the hell out of it now.

Outcast, Omikron - Interesting sci-fi action-adventure games. outcast is the better of the two, certainly, but Omikron wa really neat too. But they're both big and confusing and I tend to forget about them.

Growlanser 2 - Got this from my grandmother for christmas in 2005. Also received her terrible stomach virus. WHUPS. Ended up puking a bunch, much like everyone else in my family, and promptly forgot I even HAD this thing.

Ultima 8 - Actually managed to play a lot of this recently. 12 years after buying the Ultima Collection. Fanhate turned me off, I guess. Cut content aside, I really like this game.

^I am well aware that grinding isn't really necessary unless you brickwall'd due to bad class choices but I've already played through DQVII once before (though didn't beat it due to stupid memory card reformatting bullshit) and I want to try things differently this time but the grind is just so painful and classes don't open up until you're about a quarter of the way through the game and it takes too long to get anywhere meaningful by endgame unless you beeline it and you only really have two characters to do so with as everyone else shuffles in and out at inopportune times or shows up too late to really grow into anything.

Sword of Mana: Got sidetracked and haven't yet returned to it. Really should finish it, because I was liking the classic Secret of Mana vibe it held.

If you can actually find and emulate the original game, Final Fantasy Adventure for the gameboy, try that. The fact the script is rather pedestrian works in the game's favor. A lot of people (myself included) hated Sword of Mana's story because they took a pretty simple story and made it so morally conflicting (He's a bad guy...but we should feel sorry for him are we in the wrong OH NO) in every aspect. Plus the fact the combat is kinda broken.

^This here is the general idea I try to convey with my avvy, title, and sig.

Nevermind the other crap that game pulls like making the boss to the first of the game's proper events go from random maiden devouring vampire to misunderstood in his attempt at hiding away the Girl in one of his coffins where nobody would think to look for her (except the main character), or making the Sword of Mana go from Legendary weapon meant for full fledged Gemma Knights to wield against evil and to protect the chosen woman of the Mana Tribe to merely a conduit for channeling everyone's power of friendshit against the big bad.

And I don't know why you were repeatedly clicking on enemies since you only need to click when you want to do something different. If you just want your guys to keep attacking the same enemy they'll do so on their own.

I think I know why. Turn off the AI. It's junk.

That's...a really good point. It's been long enough since I've played that I honestly forgot about the AI. I always turned it off.

Hm... Well, maybe if I try the game again at some point, I'll turn the AI off and see if that helps. Thanks.

and you only really have two characters to do so with as everyone else shuffles in and out at inopportune times or shows up too late to really grow into anything.

I just got to disc 2 and maribel came back and stole melvins spot right after he'd just passed up where maribel was as a sage. And then I'm swapping them back later because melvin actually has hp.

Aira though, gets to be awesome joining late anyway because she's setup to get sword dance easily(Even if the game does make you go back to dancer for no reason to get it). Sword dance alone is all you need to be a good fighter. Since she joins late though I decided to make her token monster class instead of trailing behind everyone on the human class paths. And it's worked well. Healer gave her heal all and healus, evil turtle increase and soon she'll get oomph(or twinhits, whatever they're calling it). Those are both from chests so no grinding for drops or casino or anything.

I don't know what the hell to do with her next besides playing other monsters just for the hell of it, but she can hurt things, she can heal and she can support. There's no long term plan, but great cherry picking to salvage a character that comes to late for a long term plan.

There are games out there I've given second chances to over the years. I wouldn't be the Megami Tensei fan I am today had I not given Revelations: Persona a second chance all those years ago.

I think a reason I would give games a second chance is because of my current level of maturity; being able to accept a game for what it is rather than what I want it to be. That's I think why I enjoyed Wild Arms XF more than most critics. They all wanted it to be Final Fantasy Tactics and it wasn't. I accepted and loved Wild Arms XF for what it was and it most certainly was NOT Final Fantasy Tactics.

Logged

Sometimes I wonder if there was ever a time a last-place Olympic diver decided before their final dive, "I'm in last place, I have nothing to lose, I might as well have some fun with this" then yell "CANNONBALL!" from the diving board before launching into a cannonball.

After I got the final part I was distracted by FFXII so I only got to play the start of Quarantine.I want to finish it someday.

Yeah! I borrowed the first .Hack game from a friend, loved it enough to buy the 2nd, then the 3rd and 4th... but somehow didn't play much more than the start of Quarantine. I just looked at it a few days ago, and wondered if .Hack//GU was even better.

You specifically mentioned it, but to the others too, i thought Hack GU was the best of the series. It was a lot of fun to play and was a pretty decent jrpg overall, but at the end of the day it's still .Hack. Those who liked the other .Hack but wanted something better, may end up liking GU a lot.

Quote

The problem with the original .//Hack series is that it's about two or three whole games too long for the content it contains. There is a lot of grinding in each game and the actual plot relevant content over the entire quadology could easily fit onto one whole disk.

GU, at least, doesn't require much grinding, but I agree with the rest of your post.

edit: I'd KIND OF like to retry Stella Deus. I forgot about that one. I remember Ryan/Shiguma saying much he loved it and I didn't care for it. I don't even remember why I hated it, but I want to try it again after I finish a couple games.

After I got the final part I was distracted by FFXII so I only got to play the start of Quarantine.I want to finish it someday.

Yeah! I borrowed the first .Hack game from a friend, loved it enough to buy the 2nd, then the 3rd and 4th... but somehow didn't play much more than the start of Quarantine. I just looked at it a few days ago, and wondered if .Hack//GU was even better.

You specifically mentioned it, but to the others too, i thought Hack GU was the best of the series. It was a lot of fun to play and was a pretty decent jrpg overall, but at the end of the day it's still .Hack. Those who liked the other .Hack but wanted something better, may end up liking GU a lot.

Quote

The problem with the original .//Hack series is that it's about two or three whole games too long for the content it contains. There is a lot of grinding in each game and the actual plot relevant content over the entire quadology could easily fit onto one whole disk.

GU, at least, doesn't require much grinding, but I agree with the rest of your post.

edit: I'd KIND OF like to retry Stella Deus. I forgot about that one. I remember Ryan/Shiguma saying much he loved it and I didn't care for it. I don't even remember why I hated it, but I want to try it again after I finish a couple games.

Wasn't Stella Deus basically Hoshinigami 2 or something to that effect? Improved but still feels like it was made by the picked over remnants of the guys who made the first two Ogre Battle games.

Stella Deus introduced the world to Shigenori Soejima's art, and without it, P3 wouldn't have looked as ground breaking as it did, so I'm glad for that.His artwork in that game was amazing, too. Bring back that hand drawn look for P5, Hashino.

DDS2: the final dungeon and secret bosses got way too tough and I lost patience for the incessant random battles and grinding. But damn I love the game.

Ah yes, the final dungeon is pretty hard. I spend hours trying to kill the secret bosses, I think I manage to kill at least two of them and if remember you can also fight against Jack Frost there too.

I never finished though... I spend so much time trying to kill those secret bosses that I got fatigated with the game. Later I read that the ending is pretty sad or something, I suppose everyone dies? I don't know.

Almost the same thing happened with Final Fanatsy X now that I remember. I lost interest and years later reading articles about the franchise I read about the ending, then the Spoony did his "review" and I saw the ending there too.

Oh yeah, I never finished Final Fantasy IX as well for a lot of reasons but mainly was for the fault of piracy (long story). Years later I saw the ending on YouTube because I thought I wasn't gonna be able to buy the game again and this was before PSN was a thing with decent video games on it. I still don't know what the hell happens after disc 2... haven't bought it yet from PSN thanks to the amount of new releases but someday I'll have to buy it.

After all, that was my first RPG anyway, pretty important game for me too.

Final Fantasy XIII - biggest reason? Its 10 dollars new now...but my main reason is because they might convince me that the fabula nova crystallis mythos might have meaning in XIII-2. I love SE's games with time travel (Chrono Trigger) and it seems they are really making an effort to fix all the problems the first one had.

Now I really did give the game a good chance the first time I played it. I spent 20 hours on it...i figured if that is not enough to convince me, then the rest of the game has NOTHING to offer me. But alas I might try it again. What do you guys think?